Water ingress into the subsurface infrastructures from the surrounding formations may lead to several environmental, economic and sustainability problems. Sufficient spread of grout in rock fractures is necessary for obtaining the required sealing of the rock fractures. Previous projects at the lab-scale level showed that dynamic grouting improved the spread of the grout in the microfractures substantially. This project has investigated development of the dynamic grouting under field conditions at the SKB facility Äspö HRL, i.e., in an actual tunnel. The efficiency of the new dynamic injection technique adapted from lab-scale experiments to field applications was verified.
The project work was carried out by the department of Infrastructure and Concreting at Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE). The primary working group consisted of Ojas Chaudhari (Material Design, RISE) as project leader and Giedrius Zirgulis (Material lab., RISE). In addition, the working group consisted of Almir Draganovic (SKB), Ulf Håkansson (Skanska), Tommy Ellison (Besab) and Anders Selander (Cementa). The main work (laboratory Stage 1) and (field Stage 2) was conducted in the close collaboration with the participants from SKB and Skanska. Their expertise and experiences in the areas of dynamic grouting, grout penetrability, rheological properties and the grouting operations in the field has been of vital importance for the success of the project. The participants from Besab and Cementa contributed substantially at technical meetings and to the field tests, based on their extensive experiences in relation to the field operations and the materials.
The projects reference group consisted of Per Tengborg and Patrik Vidstrand (BeFo), Thomas Dalmalm (TRV), Peter Ulriksen (LTH), Charlotte Svensson Tengberg (Skanska) and Johan Funehag (Tyrens). Their in-kind support is greatly appreciated.
Stockholm,
Patrik Vidstrand